Category: front yard

In the garden

So many things in our yard are interesting or wonderful right now. The irises are blooming!

I divided them last summer and gave half to Bob and moved the rest much further away from the house, but I was pretty sure that I’d planted them too deep. But lo, lots of blooms! They’re so lovely, I’m glad I didn’t kill them.

The lilacs are beautiful.

And the apple tree is covered in blossoms! A surprise, I don’t think of them as being prolific with flowers generally. Maybe they like their mulch and companion-planted foxgloves?


The rhododendron outside our window is starting to bloom! I thought it wouldn’t this year (the camellia didn’t, after being transplanted), but I think it’s just running a little late.

MAJOR excitement: the seeds in the planters are starting to really grow!! The back row is golden beets, the middle row is leeks on the left and red beets on the right, and the front row is scallions. You can also see the tubing from Kevin’s amazing automated watering system – he did the three planting beds, the new large plants (rhodies and azaleas) in front, and the front lawn. It is GREAT not to have to be out there watering!!

Scarlet runner beans! The bunnies ate a lot of them, I may have to replant.

Carrots starting to sprout! Some peas behind them.

And beans!

And, shockingly, grass!

I’m still utterly amazed by the magic of this: start with nice packed topsoil, add seed, cover thinly with peat moss, water, and suddenly we have a LAWN. I didn’t think it would work! I can’t wait until these plants are a year or two more established, it will look so pretty.

Thin little baby grass, but it really worked!

Signs of Spring

Everywhere I look there are little hopeful things popping up out of the ground.

Hostas in the left-foreground, tulips along the front edge of the path, more tulips along the back bed. (Also note the gravel pile – started at 3 tons, and here’s how much is left when the path is about 60% done. I’m trying to see how this will work and drawing a blank, we may have to come up with a solution to use up WAY more gravel. Other side yard? plus, um…?)


Daffodils and irises.

The transplanted roses have a few dead branches that I need to trim, but they’re also growing and leafing out! So exciting, I would have been so sad if these didn’t make it.

By the blue chairs, the hydrangea is starting to leaf out, and daffodils are up.

On the other side, daffodils, and to their left: crocosmia!

Two stands of tulips, a rose with red tips, two patches of crocosmia, and happy lavender. The barberries are just starting to show color again.

The lavender, sagex2, and thymex2 are all looking pretty dormant still, but many patches of two types of tulips are starting to pop up!!

In the front yard, I keep scanning for hostas and ferns, not much on that front so far, but the tulips are starting to appear!

I was worried about this japanese maple – I planted it late and it was so freezing cold in Nov and December, but there are buds everywhere. Maybe it made it?!?

View of the walk from the car to the house – we need shrubs and plantings but I’m so excited about the way the path is shaping up!


Back up to the end of the driveway, and you get the gravel pile in all its glory. Some day we’ll have just a lawn instead of endless piles from dump trucks!

One last thing – Bob gifted me all of his rhizomes from last year’s dahlias – too much to know what to do with, but a treat nonetheless.